Compiled list of requests

[Arhowk]

Campaign mode support

• The current custom game setup is built around there only being a single map you play on, similar to how DotA works. This creates a great issue for games that want to have multiple maps, such as complex RPGs or epic campaigns. Custom games can only be a single map, similar to what DotA is

• The easiest solution for both Valve and us is to make an easy way to set the currently loaded map in the game. This is a bit of a sketchy workaround because it doesn't work for all maps, but this would be perfect for campaign-like maps and is still a great solution for diablo-style RPGS.

• An end-goal solution would be level streaming, which for those of you who are not familiar with it, the current player is only given a specific region of the map to load at once and when your hero moves around, it de-loads the parts of the map that u went past and loads the parts of the map that you visit. This is how most games do it and would be great for us but requires a massive amount of change to the DotA engine.

• Valve specification- At least give us ChangeToMap("act1_part2.vmap"), preferably even give us the ability to stream the specific parts or the whole map to players, but I know this is a massive undertaking and I do not expect it to be done. Also note that we need some easy way to maintain the scripting state between maps, either keep the same scripting engine and use a game event to signal the change in map or give us some global variable storage that's persistent between map scripting engines.

This is probably the easiest of all of the solutions for Valve to implement that would have a HUGE impact on mapmakers trying to develop for the custom game platform.

Lobby control

• Valve made these very generic lobbies that have worked for a little while for dota-like games but they are very inadequate for a very large number of games. Take, for example, Crumbling Island Arena. The game suffers because there is no way to ensure that a rank 0 player doesn't match against a rank 3000 player, making there no room for an adequate ranked play / ladder system. This problem is most prevalent in RPG-type games as well, players who have never played the game before can match with players who have maxed out every single character.
• The solution we would like is for the ability to control the panorama (Panorama is the word for the user interface of the game) for the player when he presses the play button. This can allow the modmaker to do anything from matching specific players with each other like DotA matchmaking or to show their own lobby screen where the player can choose what lobby to join.
• Creating a solution like this would have a large number of benefits, such as
  • making RPGs have lobbies that are based on what they're doing like the diablo 2 "HELL RUSH GOGOGO" or "90+ only ubers run" games
  • Locking lobbies to players that only have a specific level / rank / skill requirement
  • Creating an easier noob-friendly experience so there are no scenarios where 1-2 members of the game have no idea what is going on or how to play while other people play the game
  • Provide punishment for users who cheat / leave games early without making the game unplayable for the rest of the players by banning them after the game starts
• Valve specification- This request consists of two things- one panorama manifest file to control a UI that is shown when the Play button is pressed as well as some method of managing the available game lobbies and starting game lobbies. The obvious caveat to this is that some games may exploit this and make lobbies that make the game unusuable, if this is a concern that can't be worked around then we would still appreciate it for a select few games such as Roshpit Champions or Crumbling Island Arena. Also note that, yes, this would mean the removal of the "Create Custom Lobby" button for the few mods that have this enabled.

Interesting side note- Roshpit Champions made maps also account for difficulty. This meant he literally had to upload the game 3 times, once for each difficulty, making the map take up 3x as much file size as it should have. Whenever there was an update to the smallest aspect of the map itself (not the game code but the actual map), the player would have to redownload all of the 2-3gigs every time.

Grid navigation modifications

• It is currently impossible for us to make changes to the grid navigation of the game, which would be very useful
• An example of this would be creating a bridge that can go up or down, dynamic walkways,
• Enable dynamically changing the state of a tile (Flyable / Not flyable / walkable / not walkable / not buildable) from runtime
• Allow scaling obstructions (point_simple_obstructions) - these are things like trees or rocks in props can only be one static size-
• Valve specification- Make a GridNav:SetBlocked(x,y,blockedStatus) for us to manage whether a tile is blocked. Also allow the scaling x/y/z of a simple obstruction

Global dedicated server support

• For those of you who don't remember, the map "Realm of Chaos: Legend of Mt. Shu" originally didn't have dedicated servers while being the #1 most played map of all time. It wasn't until a reddit thread was made about this that it got dedicated servers.
• The theory for modders is that there is a batch script that is being run that gives all of the top 100 or so mods dedicated servers automatically
• It would be great for us to have some proecss to obtain dedicated servers easily without having to complain to Reddit about it so that games can continue to thrive without Valve's intervention
• This would also be great for mapmakers who want to test their next updates to their map in private on a dedicated server (because the experience can be different sometimes when on a dedicated server and when not on one)
• Valve specification- Add a button in the workshop upload tool to automatically request dedicated servers so that we don't have to wait for you to grant them

Save code storing

• At the moment, you can't really make an RPG because anyone can open the game up, hack themselves a huge hero, and just push it to the servers
• Some way to store data either on the Valve's server side like how Slitbreaker does it, or a method of receiving verification passwords from Valve when HTTP requests are sent from a server so we know the code running isn't hacked
• Valve specification- Two options- implement the doesnt-do-anything-yet function PlayerResource:GetPlayerCustomGameAccountAccord(playerId) that is a table of data we can read and write from. Optionally, give us an API key similar to what the web game API uses so that we can verify the source of the data coming to and from.

Secret: If you have a custom game with dedicated servers right now, you can post whatever data you want to any game's server. The only authentication we use right now is that its coming from a Valve server (dedicated server) but we can't make sure that the right game is running.

Custom Games Contest (disaster)

• We don't expect Valve to commit to this because its a huge task, but members of the community were talking about a short custom game contest like the short film contest
• Developers can make a TI-themed game and submit it for judging. Top few games are judged at TI for monetary prizes and the #1 game might even be played by pros on the main stage similar to the All-Star Game was at TI5 (the all-star 10v10 mode was a custom game. We don't necessarily say get rid of the normal all-star game, but it would certainly be an entertaining time-filler)
• If it's not interesting on the main stage anyway, no one is arguing with a huge influx of high-quality custom games to the workshop to play. What if they make it tower defenses? You could have 10-15 high quality tower defenses show up on the workshop overnight!

Communicating with developers

• Valve is doing a great job right now communicating with the Workshop Bot team and helping them with whatever API and feature requests they have but we haven't had communication with Valve in a very long time. They don't necessarily have to be apart of our conversations 24/7, but any easy way to contact someone and let them know a recent patch broke something or other issues in the scene would be more than beneficial for keeping modmakers working.

[robincodex]

There are a lot of problems in many ways, but Valve's focus is not on custom games. So we can only wait for their return, maybe they want to give us Source2 Engine, the Dota2 Workshop Tools many functions are not available because of DOTA2.